Normally I wouldn't make a review for a dropped game, but it's rare for me to quit a game that I didn't start explicitly as a tourist.

I've played up to the second boss fight, which feels like enough to understand the shape of the game for a critique. I'm not a fan of roguelikes, but Raw Metal only appears like one on the surface. A session of the game is less of a "run" and more of a "dive"; each dive might have a specific purpose: gathering new gear, improving your gear, retrieving lost gear, or just building up funds, all in service to the only true goal of diving deeper, even allowing you to spend money to skip floors.

On paper, I really like this structure, it's comparable to SIFU (surely a source of inspiration) unique loop of polishing previous levels to position you for success in the next. There's a tension to wagering the best gear your scrounged together against your skill to make it further and in situ you can push your luck by burdening yourself with more and more precious gear. In combat, you're incredibly frail (three strikes and you're out) but highly effective at overwhelming your enemy making for quick scrappy fights (side note: Bosses break this pattern just by being very tanky, but you do get a second wind, but so do they, so it's a wash).

That's all I what I believe the game wants to be, is trying to be, but it can't get there despite the great ideas, and even though its presentation is great, the menus are clean and professional, and the core combat feels good, there's one thing that's keeping me from playing any more. It's fucking boring.

The game is completely homogeneous, each encounter doesn't feel appreciably different from any other. There is only one playstyle, the gear I gain adjusts my stats by centimetres, consumable items are mostly ineffective, all guards swing their baton once and then get pummelled into the wall the exact same way the last dozen did. Maybe I have to fight two at once, but then the cracks in the combat system really start to show. Beyond that scenario I am on cruise control most of the time.

The only exception are the bosses, and I would love to do these fights more, but I cannot; I have to get my gear back, or I have to fill up my piggy bank so I can afford another couple rematches I want to like this game but it does not respect my time. In SIFU, if I do a level perfectly, I never have to do it again, Raw Metal just does not care.

At least they really nailed the feeling of being sent back to the mines.